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Happy New Decade everybody! I apparently decided to start out the 20s with a bang. I will be reading exceprts from Daddy Issues at a book signing event and was interviewed for a radio show airing on WAMU’s All Things Considered. You can read OR listen to the 4-minute piece on the WAMU website. Or you can just call me and I’ll tell you all about it. I was interviewed for over an hour and that was condensed into two audio clips totaling about 13 seconds. And honestly, I probably just repeated the same 13 seconds worth of information for an hour anyway. You’d know that if any of you would call me. But at least there’s a decent pic of me supporting my Eagles taken just after they clinched the division and published just after they were eliminated. But she wanted it to be authentic and I couldn’t find my Hulkamania tank top.

100 copies of the same book

And equally or even possibly more exciting – depending on if you’re into hearing me for 13 seconds or 13 minutes – is that I’ll be reading excerpts from my book Daddy Issues (no, I didn’t write another one) at an event for the Cheverly Writers group on Friday, January 17th at 7pm. And in preparation for the event, I ordered another 100 copies of the previously sold out book, which you can now buy again (well, YOU won’t buy it again, but you CAN buy it again is the point). And you can do that either via mail and pay the man to bring it to you, or via coming to the event, and save the $4 to put toward another copy of my book for that dad in your life who likes (or desperately needs) to laugh. And this time, it won’t be at you. Unless this happens to be my daughter in the future. Then they’re definitely laughing at you.

So please come to My Dead Aunt’s Books on Friday, 1/17 @ 7pm to listen to some local authors and learn something and maybe even be entertained. There will be a violinist opening the event and three of us authors from the Cheverly Writers group, who all happen to be sharing some nonfiction work. I will have copies of my book which retails for $12 being sold for the low low price of $10. That way, I don’t have to give anybody change! And if all you have is a $20, lucky you – you just got another copy of my book! Now you can read it twice! For more on the group and the event, check out the Cheverly Writers website.

Thanks for reading! I promise I’ll get back to actually talking about the kids soon enough, because I just made them a tire swing for Christmas and I should talk about them a little before they plummet 15 feet to their death.

When I was an expectant father, I was excited by the prospect of deciding which lies to tell my future subservient spawn. I found it a little weird that it’s so commonly accepted that parents will outright lie to their children. Sure, Santa – but also the BIG lies. Like if you stand for nothing, you’ll fall for anything and good things happen to good people. Ha! Good one, ma! I decided that I was going to be real with my kids. At least about the big stuff. Santa – well that’s a rite of passage for kids today. Of course, I also didn’t figure I’d ever serve my kids scrambled eggs from the floor, much less eat them myself. Yet, here we are.

But the lies I was looking very much forward to were the fun ones. The harmless little lies that make life a little more fun and dads a little more cool. Don’t throw the ball in the living room, the Slender Man will hear you. If you eat enough green vegetables, you can actually see through walls at night. For the love of God, please get out of the car or the Slender Man will be hiding under your bed until you fall asleep tonight! And my wife thought showing them Pan’s Labyrinth was a bad idea.

More seriously, I decided this would be funny. While at the playground the other day, Morris started whining about something stupid. Like maybe the fact that we would have to go home at some point. I guess he thought we could just live there forever. I don’t specifically remember what, but I remember it was stupid. To an adult. And he yelled through his pouting session that he wished I wasn’t his daddy. That’s his new thing. I’m confident he doesn’t mean it, but hey – let me call your bluff, Playground Boy.

OK, I guess we can fill out the paperwork when we get home.

What, Daddy? He stopped whining. His mood changed. The stakes had just been raised.

Yeah, we can officially file a Change of Parent Form when we get home and you will be placed with a new daddy.

When recounting this for my wife, I could actually feel her brow furrow and her head cock.

Yes, Morris, you’ll be placed with a new daddy, and I can’t promise what he’ll be like or where you’ll live, but if that’s really what you want, we can look into it when we get home.

This went on for a while and I talked about how because we have another child, Mommy couldn’t necessarily go with him either (OK, even I started to feel like I was maybe going a little too far), but we could look at it when we got home. Maybe we could visit each other.

I was preparing to do some damage control after all this. I riffed pretty hard on this and with very little provocation. It was like a drug. But my smart, wonderful, loving, and beautiful son perked up as if he had a great idea and said this instead.

Quote of the Day 8/14/2019

“Well Daddy, I want to look at you for a long time first.”

Oh, really? Why is that?

“So that when I give them the paper, I will draw a picture of you on it, so that they’ll give me back to you!”

Well, I’ll be damned. Maybe good things do happen to good people. Thank you, Morris. I love, you too.

Just two weeks before the greatest upset in men’s college basketball history, I took Mabel to UMBC to watch a first round game in the America East tournament against UMass Lowell. The new UMBC Event Center had just opened and it did not disappoint. There was enough seating in the roped-off upper deck for an entire other basketball game to take place. This felt a lot more like a big school than it did when I was pulling out the rickety old wooden bleachers in the Fieldhouse back in my working days.

I am not only a proud alum of UMBC, but a proud alum of the UMBC Athletic Department. I worked there for seven years after graduation, putting together intramural sports leagues and running the summer day camp. I also had many other side jobs – like running shot clock for men’s and women’s basketball games, running the scoreboard for men’s and women’s soccer games, doing public address for women’s volleyball games, coaching the men’s volleyball club team, and coordinating entertainment (I played music during time outs and signaled the band and dance team when appropriate) for all those events. So I have more of a stake in UMBC’s athletic success than most alumni. I could pick up the phone and call any of half a dozen people to get tickets for the UMass Lowell game. I also loved sports to the core, having literally made it my career.

Mabel picks UMBC to win it all!

Every year, I print out little sheets of paper with all 68 team logos and have the kids pick their own brackets. There were some years when it was pretty taxing and I had to keep them up past their bedtime because they had gotten tired of Daddy’s stupid little game after the first 50 picks or so, but they mostly enjoy it and actually look forward to it. Morris went with a heavy paw print theme this year, having Cincinnati, Montana, and Clemson in the Final Four. Mabel was actually excited to see UMBC in the field, having just been to a game, and picked them to win the entire tournament. I was beaming with pride and excitement as Morris and I sat with some college friends at a bar on Thursday afternoon for an hour or so, watching games with highlighter and Sharpie, playing along with my four brackets (Jenn also filled out a bracket). I picked up Mabel from school and she wanted to see how her bracket was doing. I took the kids right home and bounced back and forth between TNT, TBS, CBS, and a channel called truTV. I got legitimately excited to see Loyola Chicago’s last-second upset of Miami. All this is to say that I enjoy sports. This same level of enthusiasm continued into the next day, until the kids went to bed and I made my way to a friend’s house to watch the UMBC/UVA game. I never saw those brackets again.

Me, Drew, and Dan, on our way to Charlotte!

As I stood there in Meatwad’s living room with two Grotto pizzas, watching history being made, I had really wished that I made more of an effort to get down to Charlotte, but that would have used up my entire relationship clout for the year – maybe more. Still, I wanted to be a part of it on some level, so I dipped down into my reserve clout and made it work. A few friends and I left Sunday morning at 7am, got to Charlotte in time to see some friends at the alumni reception, watched the UMBC/Kansas State game, and drove the 7 hours home in time to take Mabel to school on Monday morning. Perhaps I’ll get into the details of the trip later, but that’s not really what I want to talk about here. That second round game may be the last game I ever really cared to watch.

I was affected emotionally in a way I didn’t expect in the least. People said things to me like “Wow! First the Eagles win the Superbowl, and now this! That’s a great year for you! Which do you think is better?” Oh yeah. That’s right. The Eagles did win the Superbowl. I completely forgot. See, The Eagles’ Superbowl victory was big for Philly. This was big for EVERYBODY. We were minor celebrities down in Charlotte and have been for the month since. When I wore my UMBC visor, nobody shouted out “UMBC SUCKS!” Everybody (outside of Charlottesville) was a UMBC fan, or at least UMBC-tolerant. A few people on Facebook talked about their brackets. Nobody cared about your bracket before this, I certainly don’t want to hear anything about brackets right now. This is bigger than brackets. This is history, a mountain heretofore unsummitted has been crested, and the flag atop that mountain is quite literally the team I have the most stake in as a fan of sports.

Which is why I may be done.

I tried to watch the second weekend of the tournament, but I had only a passive interest. I didn’t care about my brackets anymore, I kind of rooted for teams I liked, but I really wasn’t interested. I just had my sports climax and I couldn’t get it up anymore. Even the day after the victory, I was on the phone for hours making plans, looking at StubHub, figuring out child care for two hours in the morning, and the kids asked to watch TV. I turned it on and saw that basketball was on. I had completely forgotten that other games were still taking place. Nothing interested me anymore. Nothing except being as much a part of this victory as I could. I tried as hard as I could to stay high for as long as possible. But eventually, I came down. So I started searching for that high in other places. I went back to campus to visit my friends that still work there. They were busy. I went on a tour of the new Event Center. I talked to fellow fans about getting together for lunch. I talked to the Alumni Office about organizing a showing of the game so that people who weren’t there could experience it better. I kept talking to the Alumni Office about stuff. I took Mabel out of gymnastics and went to the big on campus celebration of the victory. All I wanted was another hit. That nod. And I fear I may never get it again – not like that.

But just because you’ll never again have the greatest piece of cake you’ve ever tasted doesn’t mean you should stop eating cake, right? I mean it’s still going to be good. But just before you bite into each piece, you know it’s just never going to be as good as that one piece. And as a big fan of cake for my entire life, that just sucks.

Listen, I’ll be honest. I don’t know what I’m saying here. I don’t really know that I have a point or an audience, but I have a lot to say and need to at least say something. Sorry if I made a mess of things. It’s been a month since the big game now, and I’m watching sports again. But just not with as much fervor. And part of that is on me. I kind of don’t want anything to be as important as that night was for me, and so I watched Villanova, but I rooted for them with my #RetreiverNation shirt on. I imagine I’ll be able to enjoy sports again when football rolls around in five months, because I’ll eventually have to put this down to allow myself to enjoy it. And seeing my 5-year-old hit a pitched ball will be a completely different drug entirely. But until then, or at least until July 29th, I will hold on to this feeling, even as it fades, as I have vowed to wear UMBC gear for 135 days straight. Why 135? Because they did what hadn’t been done in the previous 135 attempts. Why at all? I don’t know. To stay connected? To try to savor that feeling? Because I want to prove to people who don’t really care that I’m a bigger UMBC fan? Or maybe to remember what it was like to be in college? Like I said, I don’t really know. But I’ll keep you posted.

Upon me arriving home from Charlotte in time to take Mabel to school on Monday…

Quote of the Day 4/16/2018

“I’m sorry your team lost, Daddy”

Mabel

Me too, honey. Me too.

Chasing that basketball dragon,
Pointless Guard.

Still Standing Right Here…

The Strykers and The Fishers at the UMBC Event Center, after the celebration.

That’s Mabel. We listen to a lot of music when I drive. And no, I have no idea what The Microwave Song is.

I try “Heads Carolina, Tails California,” one of her current favorites.

Not it.

I try “We Belong,” another current Mabel fave.

Nope.

I try “The Chain,” one of my favorites.

“Daddy, I said THE MICROWAVE SONG!” Like I’m an idiot. Usually, the requests are fairly easy to interpret. Like “Daddy, play the song where they don’t cut people out.” I dig up Somebody That You Used To Know and everybody is happy. Not so this time.

Honey, how does it go? She hums some nonsense. Do you know any words? NO! Or else I would have TOLD YOU! Is it happy or sad? What key is it in? Anything at all?

This is one of the most frustrating parts of being a child. Knowing exactly what you’re talking about, and being sadly unable to convey it to the idiots that drive the cars and operate the CD player. I had gotten in the habit of recording CDs of MP3s – which fit around 150 songs on them – and using them as my car music. So there are a lot of songs that could be The Microwave Song. I thought long about my collection. I have 109 Billy Joel songs. It could be any one of them. I googled “The Microwave Song.” Trust me, that’s not it. I even outsourced it to Facebook. Not even the brilliant people on the internet knew. And still, Mabel kept requesting it and I kept coming up short as a father.

Until one day, when I was listening to Weird Al on my way to pick Mabel up from school. Put your head in the microwave and get yourself a tan. Finally! Victory is mine! I FOUND THE MICROWAVE SONG! Of course it would be by Weird Al. I don’t know why I didn’t start there. So when Mabel got in the car, I was overjoyed. Guess what I found…

“That’s not The Microwave Song!”

What?! Yes it is! He says microwave! Put your head in the microwave and get yourself a tan?

“No, Daddy. UGH! That’s not The Microwave Song!”

Idiot. How could I be so dense as to put forth as The Microwave Song what was clearly NOT The Microwave song? Why do I even bother waking up in the morning?

A year passes.

I have long forgotten about The Microwave Song, or at least I stopped actively searching for it a while ago. I’m in the car with Mabel and Tall, Tall Trees by Alan Jackson comes on.

“DADDY! THAT’S THE MICROWAVE SONG.”

Really? Tall, Tall Trees by Alan Jackson is The Microwave Song? Well, of course it is. It all makes sense now.

Well if it’s lovin’ you want, then I’ve got it. If it’s money you want, then I’ll get it. I’ll buy you tall, tall trees and all the waters in the seas, I’m a fool, fool, fool for you.

Mystery solved. On to the next case.

Once you get to within a half mile of our house, there is a small variation in the way we can go home. There’s “the way,” and then there’s this other way that adds maybe 30-45 seconds to our drive time. It’s great for songs that I know are 30-45 seconds too long. Mabel started requesting on her own once in a while to go this way. She called it “the big hill,” and I have no idea why. I didn’t prompt her to call it this or anything. “Daddy, I want to go down the big hill.” And if I already passed the big hill and couldn’t turn around or if I just didn’t want to go down the stupid big hill – which, incidentally, isn’t a hill at all – there would be screaming and tears and screaming. (There is another way home that is less of a variation and only adds about 5-10 seconds. She named this “the little hill.” That one is actually a pretty big hill.)

Anyway, she called this way “the big hill,” and when requested, I knew what she meant. This went on for years. Her brother, who is now the age she was when she started calling it the big hill, also calls it the big hill. Recently, I asked preemptively if they wanted to go down the big hill, because I didn’t want the burden of figuring out how to stop them from screaming when I didn’t go down the stupid big f@#*ing hill when they REALLY WANTED TO. To this, Mabel asked a very interesting question, which I always figured I’d have to answer one day…

Quote of the Day 3/10/2018

“Daddy, why do we call it ‘the big hill’?”

Mabel

Great freakin question, honey. Great question.

Putting my head in the microwave and getting myself a tan,
Weird Dustin.

What?

A while ago, I read something on the internet that was so damn hilarious, I wanted to find out who wrote it so I could read some other stuff they wrote. Turns out it was by a guy named Dustin Fisher. Well that can’t be right. That’s my name! And this isn’t the internet at all!!! This is a crumbled up Bennigans napkin from 2003!

D Rec, circa 2005

It sucks when you realize that you aren’t as funny as you used to be. I can handle not being as fast or limber – I don’t really run or squeeze myself into lockers anymore. But through some politically correct jobs, a lack of regular adult interaction, and a quinoa-heavy diet, my comedy muscles seem to have atrophied in the last decade. I was reading some of my old blog posts (which were originally emails, back when people read emails) and got jealous of that guy. He was free, sharp, and damn funny. But I also see no reason I can’t be him again. So in an effort to recapture these glory days of humor writing, I have decided to recreate my blog in the image of my old “Quote of the Day” daily email humor column (see The Dangers of Day Camp, Rating Street Signs, or Review of Memento for reference). Hence the moniker “Quote of the Dad.” Hopefully it works. If not, there are still over 100 movies on my Netflix queue.

Why?

I turned my column into a blog back in 2005 and I was already late to the party then. Why reboot a blog now that everybody else has left the party and moved out and got jobs and kids and mortgages? Because I have no idea what I’m doing, but I need to do something. There is a very subtle and mostly overlooked line in Big Fish when a young Edward Bloom is leaving Spectre and the mayor tells him “You won’t find a better place” and Edward says “I don’t intend to,” basically forgoing paradise because he feels the need to do something. In my case, paradise is sitting on my couch and blazing through my Netflix queue, and doing something is writing a blog no one will read. Perhaps I will turn this into a podcast in a couple years. With any luck, that will be obsolete by then.

Where?

I have taken over quoteofthedad.com. I say “taken over,” because I want to sound bold and confident, not sheepish and full of regret, like a guy who forgot to renew his daddyneedsanap.com domain and let a squatter swoop in and scoop it up for his junk drawer. Sorry. I suppose it could have also been her junk drawer.

When?

March 3rd is a special date in Dustin lore. I started the original Quote of the Day 23 years ago today, and I auditioned for Last Comic Standing on March 3rd in 2008. I think I did something else recently too, like I bought a TV or something. Anyway, it seemed fitting to roll it out on a March 3rd. Especially since I can’t afford another TV right now.

Who?

Well, me. And the kids. And occasionally my wife, though she doesn’t like it when I air out our actual dirty laundry, so I’m not sure how she’ll take to the metaphoric dirty laundry. But I will do the writing. They will just provide the content. You’ll see.

My 3-year-old son has an impeccable bargaining technique that does all the work for his opponent, often times shouting things like “Well if you won’t let me watch Mickey Mouse, I’m not watching ANY TV EVER!!” Like it’s a threat. When “OK” is a sufficient comeback, your opponent’s argument game needs work. One night, he was bargaining with time. He gets it right about half the time, but the other half, he doesn’t do himself any favors. But a few nights ago after waking up around midnight, he caught on to his mistake…

After a 3-year absence, I am about to reboot my website. Why? Because I tend to enjoy starting things just as they are becoming unpopular (I’m also in the market for some used DVDs). But before I get going on the reboot, there’s something I need to do first.

I tried to write this 3 years ago – in fact, a lot of this comes from a journal-ish thing I wrote to get my feelings down on paper – but every attempt was clumsier and less focused than the last, and every good thing was already being said by people with much better words than I had. This attempt is no exception, but this big rock needs to be moved so everything else can start to flow again.

Oren Miller, the man who changed Amazon Mom to Amazon Family

Saturday, 2/28/15

In late February 2015, I read on Facebook that Oren had stopped his chemo and he spoke about his life in terms of weeks or perhaps days. On the morning of Saturday the 28th, I finally worked up the courage to send both Oren and Beth text messages to tell them I was thinking of them and I’d love to come for a visit. Regrettably, I had talked myself into believing that he should spend his final days with his family and those close to him, convincing myself that I was not one of those people and so much as a text message from me would just be a burden to their grieving. Yes, typing it now, I feel as stupid as it sounds. Beth wrote me back within the hour saying Oren wanted to see me and asked me to come. My daughter was already in the car and we were on our way to a birthday party she had been looking forward to all month. For a moment, I considered skipping the party to go see an ailing friend. Instead, I opted to go to the party, but leave early. After all, if Oren was too tired to talk when I got there, I’d be able to come anytime on Sunday.

In the hour-long trip to Oren’s place, I had no idea how to talk to him. Would we ignore the elephant and talk about how Boyhood was robbed at the Oscars? Maybe he wanted me there to provide a distraction from the cloud. Or would we look the elephant in the eye and tell him what kind of a bastard he is right to his face? Maybe he’d want me to work on getting all his best blog posts and essays together into book form, like the one I self-published last year – to which he attended the release party the week before he got the news. Heck, I’d be honored. I’d even offer up Brent to do the artwork. I had settled on coming out and asking him directly what he wants to talk about. But in a funny way, to lighten the mood. That’s probably why he wants to talk to me.

By the time I got to his place, he was asleep. Family and friends were there. Over the next hour, it became apparent that this was the end. I would not be coming back to see him tomorrow to talk about Boyhood. Beth told me that Oren wanted to see me because he wanted someone from the Dad Blogger group to speak at his funeral. Damn. Gut punch after gut punch.

I took solace in helping clear the driveway of a fallen tree and chip away at the ice for an hour or so with the others who were there. I hoped he would come out again, that the prognosis was wrong. But I also felt like I was inappropriately making this about my guilt for missing whatever window I was given to see him. There will be other birthday parties. I should have come right away. And why did it take me so long to work up the courage to text him? These are questions I’ll work on later. For now, there is a grieving family that could use support, however I can manage to give it to them.

Oren passed away before I got home.

Sunday, 3/1/15

I called Brent to talk about the eulogy. On every level, it made more sense for him to give it. I would be happy to say something in his stead, should he have felt, for whatever reason, that he couldn’t do it. Brent then wrote and later delivered the most beautiful tribute to a person that there has ever been. But please, don’t take my word for it. I did recommend that we have some of Oren’s quotes in a collage for people at the reception to see. I did the same for my dad. It was a bunch of pieces of paper taped to a piece of wood, which had been covered in green paper. Pretty ghetto, but also, very fitting for my dad. Before I knew it, Brent was suggesting we make a video tribute for him. He assembled five of his closer dad blogging friends and put it out there and before I knew it, I was downloading video editing software and creating a video for his funeral. It was an honor to be able to help in some way. Honestly, Jeff Bogle did the heavy lifting, gathering 95% of the pictures that I used from family and other dad bloggers, but I was happy to have helped.

I took a break from the video for family movie night, a tradition recently started in an effort to bundle most of the TV we allow Mabel to watch into a controllable and predictable time period. I had gone most of the last couple days without shedding too many tears, despite being the kind of guy that cries at the end of every episode of Monk and many Subaru commercials. I sat and watched my two-year-old girl and two-month-old boy and imagined what their movie night would be like without me. And that’s when I lost it. I had to leave the room because I didn’t want to have to explain to Mabel why I started sobbing uncontrollably in the middle of Madagascar. Maybe Up or The Lion King, but not Madagascar. Shortly after the movie, I got back to work, which was a good distraction from the sadness, even if it involved looking at over a hundred pictures of Oren and his family.

Monday, 3/2/15

I arrived at the funeral about 45 minutes early to set up the video. This was not the first time I was at this funeral home. A few years ago, when Mabel was only a baby, I was here for a college friend’s funeral. I did not appreciate having a sort of familiarity with a particular funeral home. I set up the video, adjusted the volume 47 times, and looked desperately for Brent or somebody I knew. I sat with Brent, Chris Bernholdt, and Jeff Bogle, together as the four representatives of the Dad Bloggers group that Oren started and ran all the way up to yesterday.

I didn’t belong there. I wasn’t family. I had met Oren a few times, but I wasn’t even a real blogger. I was sitting with these three larger than life characters, who also coincidently all happen to be 6’3” and above, listening to them talk about monetizing stuff, sponsorship, and paid trips to go somewhere they could blog about later. I pay a web hosting site a few bucks a month and post stuff I think is funny. We are not in the same world. I didn’t have anything to say to them. And boy, do I have no idea what to say to Beth or certainly the kids. I was a phony and I was crashing a funeral because of my own guilt. What an ass. I looked around for any other imposters. Nope. Just me.

You know who I need to be here right now? Oren. He was my bridge from me to these rock stars. He got me. He understood these insecurities. Stupid as it sounds, I was really wishing he was there to sit between me and these other three guys. He stood squarely in both worlds and when he was there, I was on equal footing with the others. He made me feel comfortable. He made everyone feel comfortable. He talked about me in his blog once. I felt honored. We met IRL when I first joined the group to talk about blogging, SAHDing, and Facebooking. He actually – and I shit you not – had to explain to me what a thread was. I didn’t know. And he didn’t judge. It was largely his influence that kept me both an active member of the Facebook group and a blogger at all. In the three years since he passed, I have only posted once. Saying that Oren’s passing was the only reason I stopped writing would be overdramatizing the past – it was a ton of things, as it always is – but I didn’t feel a part of the group like I did before. And the motivation just wasn’t as strong.

Brent stood up to give his eulogy. It was moving and perfect. He sat back down and some other people spoke. I still didn’t know what to do. I wanted to show my support, but I started questioning why. And then it was time to go to the cemetery. They were calling the pallbearers up to the front to help them. A few of the people I had met on Saturday started moving to the front. And then they called my name. Dustin Fisher. Why? I mean, I was surely happy to help but why me? I was sitting with three men all at least 6’7” and much stronger and my name was called? Perhaps it was a thank you for the video montage. Maybe the other guys would have been too tall and strong. Or maybe Beth needed one more person and I was the only name she could remember at the time. Regardless, I was shocked. Maybe I wasn’t a phony after all. Maybe I did belong here. Maybe I was better friends with Oren than I thought.

After the service and the cemetery, we collected back at Beth’s house for Shiva, yet another chance for me to feel insecure and phony. Only I now felt a little more like I belonged. I still didn’t know why I was chosen as a pallbearer for this incredibly important moment, but I was. This gave me a little confidence to talk to these people as a real friend of Oren, regardless of how many times I had seen him in the real world or how many hits my website got last week. Suddenly I found some common ground with these 7-foot behemoths of the dad blogging industry. I even felt comfortable enough to bring Mabel to Shiva the following day. Mabel is always a good icebreaker. Unfortunately, she is also an adept Lego breaker. Sorry, Liam. Thank you for taking that in stride. And then I had a thought. I think I know why I was chosen as a pallbearer. It was Oren. It was him, sitting between me and these people and things that intimidated me. He was – maybe one last time – making me feel like I fit in. He was my bridge yet again. And so even at his own funeral, he was able to reach out and do for me what he had done many times before with regard to my writing and my dadding. He told me that what I was doing was enough. That I had no reason to doubt myself or my intentions. That I deserved to grieve and show support as much as anyone. Thank you, Oren. I’m sorry it took me three years to say it.

It’s been a LONG time since I’ve written, and the reason for that is very much related to the reason I need to write this particular story today. I know what you’re thinking. But Dustin, what the heck are you talking about? That’s the most awkwardly worded sentence ever. While you have a penchant for hyperbole, you do have a point. I’ll explain.

Morris was born the day after Christmas last year, making him over ten months old now. And he still sleeps in our bed. When he wakes up at night – which is often – I feed him and we hang out until he goes back to sleep. This can sometimes take an hour or two. Occasionally, I transfer him to the crib once asleep, but he rarely sleeps in it for very long and sometimes wakes up immediately when he realizes that dream he’s having where he’s flying through the bedroom is actually not a dream and it’s the beginnings of me leaving him alone in a cage.

We have avoided sleep training him for a few reasons, but those reasons gave way to the need to sleep an embarrassingly long time ago. And I have been dragging my feet because he was sick one time, and because Jenn got a promotion another time, and because the Eagles played on Monday Night Football once, and it’s time for the excuses to stop. I wrote it down on the calendar that the sleep training starts tonight. But knowing my penchant for excuses and the lack of people who see my kitchen calendar on a month-to-month basis, I wanted to put it out there online for all to see. Not to brag or complain or entertain, but to be held accountable. That’s where you all come in.

I expect you all to tell me how much of a wus I am if I don’t start doing this tonight. When we finally did this for real to Mabel, she cried for 47 minutes the first night, 20 the second, and never more than 10 every night after. I have no reason to believe Morris won’t be able to make the transition just as easily. But it does mean the end of cuddle time. And at this point, that’s fine with me.

Maybe it’s because this time around, I’ve seen it work once already. Or maybe because I’m curious to see Morris tackle this new problem. Or maybe it’s because I’m barely sleeping at night anymore and it’s causing me to be irritable toward the kids and Jenn and the people on the phone at Comcast (actually, they had it coming), and I’m looking forward to not being irritable anymore. I’m looking forward to my left shoulder not hurting anymore because I don’t have anywhere to put it night after night. I’m looking forward to sleeping without being kicked in the ribs or without having a pair of knees in my back. And I’m mostly looking forward to eventually getting on a schedule again where my body gets tired at night. Over the course of the last ten months, my body has stopped getting tired at night, so even when the little guy sleeps, I can’t. My biology is all wonked up. And for that reason, and the fact that I usually have a pair of little legs on my gut, I can’t find time to open the computer to write. Hopefully that begins to end tonight. And if not, I expect to hear it from all of you. Please.

So the cold strategic neglect that is the extinction method starts tonight. And I think he knows it because he decided to mess with his nap schedule. But I will not back down. And I’m not going to wus out like I did the first two times with Mabel. It happens tonight. Because it’s on the calendar.

I’ve been trying unsuccessfully to write about the past few days all night. Everything comes out clumsy, distracted, forced, and a little too much about me. So I’ll table that for now and instead just show you the video we had playing at the funeral and the reception. I put it together in under 24 hours, so it isn’t perfect. I had to use all instrumental music because the video software I downloaded Monday sped up all the audio. But I’m happy to have been able to help out in some way with this grieving process. Many thanks to Jeff Bogle, who got together about 95% of the pictures used in this montage in about 8 hours, and to the Dad Blogger group for helping find most of the quotes in the video. Oren, you will be missed.

Sorry I haven’t really written anything new in 7 months, but there was a good reason. This is the post that needed to be written before I could write anything else.

Mabel with Ultrasound

The plan was always to have a second child. Of course, by “plan,” I mean utopian future in which I get everything I want, and by “always,” I mean Jenn and I talked about it once over dinner on our third date when we were still lying to each other. Jenn and I both had siblings growing up and we wanted Mabel to have that experience too. Besides, with the two of them having each other to occupy their time, that meant more time for me to concentrate on my Netflix queue. So when we got pregnant again, it was hardly an accident. Of course, seeing as how we conceived while still on the pill, it’s difficult to argue that we weren’t actively trying to not have another child. So maybe this new child is an accident by circumstance, but certainly not a mistake, a distinction that will likely be important in his or her future therapy sessions.

Our family is fortunate enough to afford to have Jenn work while I stay home and raise Mabel, who turned two a few months ago. And being a stay-at-home dad has been the greatest experience of my life. Except of course for the first year, which was absolutely terrifying. Simple things like balloons and remote controls become devices of death when babies are involved. But once Mabel was walking and consolidated her nap schedule so that we could actually do things during the day, life got much better. Every day was a party. We’d go to the zoo or the playground or the Natural History Museum in the morning, we’d come home to take a nap (yes, I said we), and we’d go to the pool or the lake in the afternoon. Mabel and I had gotten into a groove. The introduction of another human life into this equation – one whom I’d be directly responsible for protecting from deadly balloons and such – could possibly tear that world down. Besides, I had gotten used to kissing Mabel on her forehead every night and telling her that she was my favorite person in the world and I didn’t want to have to qualify that with anything. “Goodnight, little Bunnyhead. You’re my favorite person in the world… Well, you’re tied now. No, there is no one and one-A, you’re both number one… And mommy? She’s third.”

When we found out about Mabel and hit that 14th week, in the case of one holiday party, we literally shouted the news from the rooftop. We couldn’t wait for the world to know. This new baby is unfortunately not coming into the world with the same fanfare, producing yet another layer of parental guilt. We know it isn’t fair, but from what I’ve heard, the second child needs to get used to never getting the same attention the first child gets. I just didn’t think that life would start in the womb.

The time came for our 18-week ultrasound, the one where we find out the sex of our little fetal ball of guilt. Mabel and I went to this event because I wanted us all to have the experience of everyone finding out at the same time. Mabel was justifiably confused and obsessed with the flashlight that was able to penetrate into mommy’s tummy to see the little baby. After five minutes of that, she turned her obsession toward an open box of rubber gloves and the trash can, a game which was admittedly wasteful, but preoccupied her in a non-destructive manner, which I considered a win. The technician measured the head and the femur and a bunch of other stuff I’m sure is important before finally revealing the one piece of info that we were there for. Mabel was going to have a baby brother. There was a mixed reaction in the room, but I was happy for the news. And not necessarily for the reasons most typical sitcom dads are happy they’re having a boy, but because now Mabel would be daddy’s little girl, and no one could take that away from her.

We had discussed names of boys but had never really settled on anything like we did with Mabel. Her name came to us in a dream, both of us sitting straight up in the middle of the night, looking at one another, and simultaneously saying “Mabel!” Nothing like that was happening with this child. And after weeks of discussion, lobbying, and a little indifference, we finally found something to agree on. Corbin. Corbin Fisher. We both liked it. It was original, fun, and neither of us had an ex named Corbin. So it was decided.

We weren’t telling people at the time about the name. Which means that I wasn’t allowed to tell anyone about the name, but Jenn was telling random people whenever she wanted to. One afternoon, she told her friend at work, a gay security guard (an important detail which you’ll discover soon enough). His response was Oh, like Corbin Fisher. But Jenn didn’t take my last name and this guy had no way of knowing what Corbin’s last name would be. You might want to Google that.

So we did. And as it turns out, Corbin Fisher is not the name of a gay porn star. It’s the name of a gay porn franchise. A film studio. A website that won the “Best Adult Gay Megasite” at the 2006 Cybersocket Awards. This probably wasn’t going away anytime soon. Let it be known that I have nothing against gay people and very little against pornography, but this may be out of our hands. Still, a part of us really wanted to hold onto the name. And that way, when we introduced our son to people and they recognized the name, we could glare at them in judgment, which is what parenting is all about. But this kid is eventually going to go to high school, and this was unnecessary baggage to saddle him with. So we had to say goodbye to Corbin Fisher. And we turned the parental controls back on our internet browser and went back to the drawing board.

After the ultrasound, we all adjourned to the doctor’s office to talk about weight gain and some other less important stuff. It’s a boy! the doctor said. We know, I retorted. The doctor asked if Mabel yet knew that she was going to be a big sister. We think she knows, but we don’t really know how much she’s taking in. She keeps saying she’s going to be a big sister, so there’s that. Sure, but she probably doesn’t understand the full implications of what that means. Well of course not. Neither do we.

The doctor then told us that there was a white spot on our son’s left heart chamber, that is likely indicative of calcium deposits, which happens to be a soft marker for Down syndrome. The term soft marker means that in and of itself, the spot is not an indication of Down syndrome, but together with other markers, like the bridge of the nose and the length of the femur, it is a strong indication that the child will be born with Down syndrome. Our doctor flippantly said this happens all the time and I see maybe six or seven people a week in this office with this, and it almost always turns out to be nothing. She was smiling. Out of how many? I wanted to ask. Was it 50? If so, that’s a good percentage. Or was it closer to 1,000? That’s not so good.

She wasn’t telling us this to intentionally send us spiraling into a panic. She had to tell us this as a matter of procedure to cover her ass. And I get that, but it doesn’t stop the spiraling. She did say that the spot often goes away and asked us if we’d like to schedule another ultrasound. Sure. How’s tomorrow? And every day after that until it goes away? We scheduled the next ultrasound for our 22-week appointment and had the task of trying not to obsess over it for the next month.

Jenn and I wanted to handle the next month in two separate ways: she wanted to do research and talk about it; I wanted to ignore it. These techniques were at odds with each other and neither of us was happy with the compromise. Through her research, Jenn discovered that 16% of babies have this spot show up at some point during their fetal stage. Less than 1% of these babies – absent of any of the other soft markers – are born with Down syndrome. I still didn’t much like the percentages. I just wanted to exist until the next appointment.

Mabel and I did not go to the next appointment. In the case that we got bad news, we didn’t want Mabel to be there. And so Mabel and I waited at the playground for the call. 45 minutes after Jenn’s appointment time and I still hadn’t heard from her. An hour. An hour and 10 minutes. And hour and 15 minutes. An hour and 16 minutes. I was now checking my phone twice a minute in anticipation of the call. Finally, an hour and 47 minutes after the appointment, I got the call. Apparently, Jenn’s doctor wasn’t there. Another doctor took the appointment and told Jenn that the calcium deposits don’t normally go away and she didn’t know why the other doctor told us that. So there was no good news and there was no bad news. There was no news. And now, we’d need to wait another four months until the birth of our son to find out for sure. It would be to be tough to ignore for that long.

Not only is this child being born at a time when we were actively not trying to conceive, but he had his name taken from him by a homosexual pornography website, and he’s in a limbic stage of potential genetic defect. He did not have his sonograms published online for all to see and information of his existence was not shouted from a rooftop.

I know there are plenty of special needs children who grow up to live happy and privileged lives. I feel yet another layer of guilt at times just hoping that our son doesn’t have Down syndrome. But as parents, we just want our children to have the best chance in life that they possibly can.

For the next 18 weeks, Jenn and I decided to shoulder the burden of this information alone. After all, odds were very good that in three years, my perfectly healthy son and I would be leaving the playground to go pick up Mabel from school, get Jenn from the Metro after work, and we’d go have a nice dinner and maybe chase each other around the house before bedtime, life full of smiles and laughter. Of course, there’s still that less than 1% chance that he wouldn’t be perfectly healthy, and that our lives would all need to adjust accordingly. But raising a child wasn’t exactly easy the first time around anyway. We figured it out once, we can do it again.

…17 Weeks, 6 Days Later

Jenn and I casually strolled into the hospital at 9pm on the day after Christmas, confident our son would be born before Mabel woke up the next day. Less than an hour and a half after we parked the car, our son was thrust into this world, absent of a planned epidural and carrying the burden of four months of suppressed anxiety. Nurses and doctors unaware of my concerns told us how healthy and beautiful he was. No one explicitly said “and he doesn’t even have Down syndrome.” About 20 minutes later, I finally posed the question that I apparently needed a blunt answer to.

No, said the nurse, as if it was an absurd question asked by an absurd man. Mabel was going to have a perfectly healthy brother to play with and teach about the world.

I sat down and called my sister. We talked about weight and the labor process and she asked, innocently enough Is he healthy? She didn’t know. And that’s when I lost it. I tucked myself into a dark corner of the room and wept, finally relieved of not only the anxiety of not knowing, but also of the secret we had been keeping for the last four months. Morris Glen Fisher, named for both of his grandfathers, will have as good a chance as his parents can possibly provide for him. Of course, he is now named after an apartment complex in Arlington, but there are some battles he’s just going to have to fight on his own.

On the morning of Mabel’s second birthday, she and I ran into our neighbors while taping a giant paw print made out of a blue bed sheet to our garage door. The sweet and thoughtful people that they are, they had bought a backpack for her. It was Mabel’s first second birthday gift, and an incredibly kind and unnecessary gesture. And then came the verbal tug of war this is trying to get a toddler to show appreciation.

“Mabel, that’s so great! What do you say?”

“Iss a backpack.”

“Yes, Bunnyhead, I know. And Kalimoir got it for you. What do you say to her?”

“…Iss a pink backpack.”

“Yes honey. Good job. It is pink. But can you say thank you to Kalimoir for getting you the pink backpack?”

“My like Dowa.”

“Yes honey, Dora wears a backpack too. And now you can look just like her thanks to Kalimoir. Now please say thank you.”

“…”

“Maaaabellll, what do you say?”

“My want to watch Dowaaaaa.”

Talking to a toddler is like arguing with quicksand. The more you struggle, the more stuck you get. Kalimoir, a mother of four children herself, fortunately understood that and doesn’t seem like the type of person who only gets gifts to receive acknowledgement of her generosity. Especially from a two-year-old. Still, it would be nice for Mabel to get used to saying thank you on occasion – whether she knows what it means or not – to make the other 15 conversations we would have later that day move along more quickly.

Shovel and Pail

For Mabel’s second birthday, we decided to throw her a Blue’s Clues-themed party. As much as I rely on television as a crutch on my at-home-dad sick days, Mabel still hasn’t gotten bitten by the princess bug. Probably because we haven’t really exposed her to any of it. For this reason, she also doesn’t crave beef jerky, beer, or bungee jumping. As far as she knows, the word television is synonymous with a peppy blue animated dog, talking condiments, and an adult man who can not only talk to all of them, but also to Mabel. And football of course. And very recently, Dora, which is my wife’s fault.

Planning a Blues Clues party nowadays is a difficult endeavor. When typing Blues Clues party favors, Google suggested I reset my browser to 1998. I’m sure 15 years ago, light green and dark green horizontal striped rugby shirts were available in every corner drug store, but in 2014, they’re a little hard to come by. Fortunately, Mabel has internet-savvy babysitters who enjoy spending their work time on impossible chores for the purpose of throwing a theme party. We managed to find chocolate party favors in the shape of the show’s characters, miniature Handy Dandy Notebooks for all the kids, and the piece de resistance, a reasonable facsimile of Steve’s green and green striped shirt.

I have been blessed with the distinction of looking way too much like Steve from Blue’s Clues. This garnered me some popularity during my day camp counselor years, but I had no real use for this gift. Until now. With that shirt, the 86 DVR-ed episodes of the show played on repeat, and my ability to make an idiot out of myself, I was to become Steve. And we were going to play an epic live version of Blue’s Clues at Mabel’s birthday party for all the toddler s who have absolutely no idea what Blue’s Clues is. Sure, there was that huge gaping hole in this concept, but I unfortunately look nothing like Dora.

Mailbox

The party had been going on for about an hour. Blue cookies and cupcakes were largely avoided by adults because they looked disgusting and tasted like Jolly Ranchers, but the older kids managed to take them off the counter and sneak them to Mabel when we weren’t looking. Oh well. Happy birthday, Mabel. Despite the fact that everyone was already having fun without my assistance, it was time. Time for me to interrupt that fun for the sake of my daughter’s happiness. And maybe a little bit for my own ego. But this Blue’s Clues party game had been planned for weeks – it was largely the reason we didn’t give up on the theme – and I’ll be darned if I’m going to let 15 miniature Handy Dandy Notebooks go to waste.

I – nay, Steve – jumped around like a goofball, led 15 increasingly excited kids from room to room, writing down clues and singing the incorrect words to dumbed-down songs, until the moment when we would find out what Blue was trying to tell us. What was she trying to tell us? What was the special gift that she wanted to get for Mabel? Oh my! It’s her own special Blue doll! What a surprise!

Honestly – as you can see clearly on the video – Mabel wasn’t necessarily that impressed with her doll. She really just wanted to go back outside and talk to Mailbox again. You’d be surprised how many household items can come to life with a bag full of googly eyes. But it wasn’t the toy that I really poured my passion into anyway. It was the excitement of the event that was fun for me, and hopefully for the rest of her friends, and mostly for Mabel. And so I – nay, Steve – retreated back upstairs and was thusly transformed back into Daddy, who tragically missed the whole show.

Because the kids were having so much fun on their own, we opted not to interrupt that with a gift-opening session destined to fail. Besides, we could prolong the birthday by up to a week this way. The party lasted over two hours, which is pretty long considering the attention span of the average two-year-old. Dinner time rolled around and I was beat. Between the show and the other intricacies of the party, I barely said hi to most of the party guests, including my baby girl. I finally got to eat the food everyone else had been eating for the last couple hours. The crowd subsided with the exception of my sister and her two kids, who were staying the night. We all stayed up to watch Wallace and Grommit (the one with the penguin), and we finally got our sugar-laced two-year-old to sleep almost two hours after her normal bed time.

On a normal night, I’ll read her up to five books, tuck her in, and sing to her while lying down with her in her bed. But she was not going to need those five books tonight. As soon as we changed her into her pajamas and turned the light down, a switch went off in her and she fell limp to the bed. Her eyes struggled to stay open just a little bit longer, to take in the day that she just had. I just laid there looking at my exhausted little angel, wishing every day could be exactly like this one. I leaned down and kissed her on her forehead. “Happy birthday, Bunnyhead. I hope you had a fun time today. Now you have a good baby night and we’ll have a fun baby day tomorrow.” She managed a hug with her eyes closed.

“Thank you, Daddy.”

I don’t know if she knew what she was saying, and if she did, what exactly she was thanking me for. Perhaps she was just thanking me for the kiss on her forehead. Or maybe she wanted to show me she could say the words I’d been begging her to say all day. Or maybe she knew exactly what she was saying. But I just wanted to melt those words down, build a house out of them, and live in that moment forever. You’re welcome, Bunny.